See Which Disney Film Is Most Popular Where You Live

Everyone has their favorites. And with a company with a long legacy like Disney, the preferences can be all over the map. And in the case of Disney+ content, it literally is. As part of the build-up to Disney+ Day this Friday FinanceBuzz has released the results of a study using Google Trends to see which Disney movies were the most popular in each state. The results are so diverse and reflect both the depth of Disney’s catalog and the range of interests from coast to coast.

While Disney is known worldwide for animation, not every Disney hit is made with paint and pixels. The study broke down Disney’s most popular movies across multiple categories including most popular overall and most popular animated movies. And with the trend towards live-action versions of their most popular animated movies, there was even a breakdown of which versions of the stories with both options were most popular overall. And remember when you couldn’t stream everything? One day explaining that there was a time when movies had to be physically grabbed off a shelf and rewound when they were done will sound as antiquated as going to the well for water. But the legacy of the Disney vault is still with us.

Long Live The King

For all of Disney’s standout hits the one that seems to pop in every listing is The Lion King. Whether you look at its popularity during the vault era where it was the most popular film in 29 states or the overarching movie category which saw the animated film most popular in 4 states while the live-action one took the crown in 4 others, the African epic with music from Tim Rice, which has also been reimagined on broadway has cemented a place in the imagination of the public. When broken down by only animated features the Lion king turned out to be the most popular animated film in 8 states.

An interesting breakdown was whether the live-action remakes, which of course are a much more recent phenomenon, are more popular than their animated counterparts, some of which predate the new films by decades. Seven out of ten live-action remakes proved to be more popular than the original animated classics. The three animated classics that won out are Dumbo, The Lady and the Tramp and Mulan. Whether that is due to recency bias or an overall change in expectations and culture or even just the popularity of the stars involved at the time difficult to surmise at the time.

You can see all of the breakdowns from the study here. Below we present the overall most popular cross-category films. Have fun with this.